Twenty
Stevie had just tucked her satchel under the passenger seat of the Mini when her phone jangled into life. She scrabbled it free from the side pocket of her bag and saw a number she didn’t recognise flashing on the screen.
‘Stephanie Flint?’ The voice was male and unfamiliar.
Stevie had heard of spy software that could follow you via your mobile phone, tracing your movements across virtual maps, and an image flashed into her head of her car parked at the side of the road, while her attacker gazed down on it, huge and godlike. She slid her key into the ignition.
‘Who is this?’
‘Alexander Buchanan from St Thomas’s Hospital. Is that Ms Flint?’
She remembered him. The chemist, Simon’s other colleague, a pale man with translucent eyes, some kind of handsome in his strangeness.
‘Yes. Do you have some news about Simon?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ Buchanan sounded assured, but there was an underlying hesitation in his delivery, as if he was uncertain of how much he should tell her. ‘I wondered if you might be available to meet. As you may have gathered from the news, we medics are rather pushed at present, but I’d prefer to discuss this face to face if possible.’
Stevie held the phone away from herself for a moment, trying to weigh up her priorities. She had parked in a side street round the corner from her flat, but she could see a glimpse of main road from where she was sitting, the parade of shops that the estate agent had described as ‘convenient’ when she had bought her flat. She lifted the phone to her ear again.
‘I’m sorry.’ She made her words crisply efficient, trying to match Buchanan’s public-school-followed-by-Oxford-or-Cambridge confidence. ‘I’ve an appointment I mustn’t miss.’
‘Afterwards perhaps?’
‘I’m not sure that will be possible. Can’t you tell me what this is about over the phone?’
Now it was the chemist’s turn to pause. Stevie let the silence hang between them. Buchanan had called her, and much as she wanted to hear what he had to say, that made him the seller and her the buyer.
After a moment he said, ‘I asked to be present at Simon’s autopsy. The results were consistent with what I believe you were told when you found him.’
‘Sudden adult death syndrome?’
‘Yes, but SADS is notoriously hard to diagnose; it can be a bit of a catch-all really. I felt an obligation to a friend and colleague to make sure that there were no underlying causes, so I asked to examine the body myself.’
The body. Death had turned Simon and Joanie into objects. Stevie resisted the urge to press her forehead against the hard edge of the steering wheel.
‘What did you find?’
‘Simon was in good shape for a man of his age. He had no undiagnosed heart defects, and hadn’t suffered an embolism or any of the other biological catastrophes usually responsible for sudden deaths.’
‘Does that mean there’s no way of finding out . . .?’
The chemist interrupted her. ‘Like I said, Simon was a friend as well as a colleague. I conducted some extra toxology tests of my own. Simon’s blood contained faint traces of a sedative, too faint for standard checks to detect.’
Stevie scanned her memory of Simon’s en suite. The bathroom cabinet had been neat and well stocked. She couldn’t remember any sleeping pills, but he was a doctor and presumably able to acquire prescription drugs when he wanted them. She said, ‘If Simon was feeling under the weather he might have decided he needed a good night’s sleep and taken something to help him get one.’
‘That’s certainly possible, but the faintness of the sedative traces intrigues me. If Simon took a sleeping pill before going to bed and died within the next five to seven hours, I would have expected there to have been more left in his system. It could be that he lingered on in a coma and the sedative left his system during that time, but sudden death syndrome is usually swift and unexpected, hence the name. You found his body in bed, which suggested to me that Simon had died in his sleep. That set me wondering if he might have taken anything else, some narcotic which wouldn’t leave any residue in his body.’
‘Simon wasn’t into drugs. He didn’t even drink much alcohol.’
It was true. Simon had possessed so much energy that he often seemed a drink ahead of her, even when he had been sticking to mineral water for the sake of an impending operation.
‘I realise that.’ The hesitation was back. It made the chemist sound like a man about to break bad news, reluctant to give voice to what he was about to say. ‘I wanted to ask if you’d noticed anything odd about Simon in the weeks before he died. Did he seem anxious? Depressed?’
It was the same question that Simon’s cousin and the policeman who had interviewed her had asked.
Stevie said, ‘He was distracted, worried maybe, but if you’re asking me if I think Simon committed suicide, then the answer is no, I don’t.’
‘You sound certain.’
‘I am.’ Stevie had a sudden impulse to tell Buchanan that she was also sure Simon had been murdered, but he would be bound to interrogate her and any opportunity to draw out what he knew would be lost. Stevie looked beyond the window of the car. The street was empty, but it was lined with apartment blocks and whoever had searched her flat might be hiding behind one of the anonymous windows, ready to follow her. She pushed the doctor, the way she might put pressure on a merchant in a souk, by pretending to walk away. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go.’
‘Forgive me.’ The chemist took a deep breath. It was silent at his end of the line for a moment and Stevie wondered if the connection had been broken. Then he said, ‘Simon and I were at school together, and I still think of him more as a brother than a friend. He didn’t really have any close family members left, and so it’s up to me to find out as much as I can about how he died.’ Buchanan let out a short, embarrassed laugh. ‘I hope that doesn’t sound too melodramatic. I still can’t believe he’s dead. I guess what I really want to ask is, did Simon leave anything that might explain what happened, a note or a diary?’
‘No, nothing like that.’
‘Just the package for Mr Reah?’
‘Yes.’
The chemist paused again, as if trying to decide what to say next.
Stevie turned the screw. ‘I’m sorry I can’t be much help . . .’
Buchanan interrupted her, as she had hoped he would.
‘I know you refused to let Dr Ahumibe take responsibility for the package, but I wonder if you would consider allowing me to take a look at it?’
It would be a simple thing to hand the laptop over to Buchanan with a warning that someone was after it. Simon had been clear that she was to trust no one except Reah, but both Simon and Reah were dead, and there was no bringing them back.
It was as if the chemist sensed the uncertainty in Stevie’s silence. He added, ‘Things are pretty bloody here, but I could send my son William to collect it if you tell me where you are. He could be with you in no time.’
It was silly to think she would hand the laptop over to a stranger. Simon had entrusted it to her and she had fought for it with her life. Stevie said, ‘Simon never mentioned you or your son.’
‘He was William’s godfather.’ Buchanan sighed. ‘Simon had a tendency to compartmentalise. He never mentioned you either.’
It was nothing she didn’t know already, but Stevie was surprised by a quick throb of disappointment. She asked, ‘Was he good with children?’
‘William’s twenty-nine, not a child any more, but yes, Simon was one of his more popular uncles. He wasn’t the most attentive godfather, prone to forgetting birthdays and rather too inclined towards dangerous presents for my ex-wife’s liking, but William adored him. He’s pretty cut up about his death. We all are.’